[1]Inhale, pause… Exhale, pause… The pendulum of the breath swings effortlessly back and forth, in and out.

During these cold days of the year, we may catch ourselves fascinated with the phenomena of the breath. And in your child’s first year[2], you may be constantly listening to his or her sleeping breath.

But most of the time, the breath goes unnoticed. As yogis, we harness our minds and balance our bodies by observing the breath[3] and the life force vibrations that travel inside the fabric of the breath.

I remember when one of my first teachers told me that it took him three years of pranayama[4] to successfully observe a single cycle of breath without any mental interruptions.

Every morning my wife Colleen and I devote 30 minutes to pranayama practice. Why spend so much effort and time observing and playing with the breath and perfecting our breathing techniques[5]? After more than 20 years of daily pranayama practice, I can tell you that it is one of the great sanctuaries of peace and presence. It is the heart of our day. It is restoration. It is center. It is being. And with this practice comes random moments of beauty, sprinkled throughout the day, when we remember again to let the mind be caught by the breath.

And then we understand what Kabir[6] meant when we wrote “God is the breath inside the breath inside the breath.”